Liz, age 15, got scared when her hair started falling out. But the Pueblo, Colorado, teen couldn’t stop sniffing paint from milk jugs even though she didn’t like how she looked. She lost her appetite and a lot of weight due to the effects of the poisonous fumes.

In Englewood, Colorado, paramedics worked frantically to save the life of an 11-year-old girl. She almost died from sniffing hair spray. A paramedic explained, “What happens is the person gets hallucinations and an intense sense of euphoria [high] that lasts for a short time”

He continued, “You do it even once and it can kill you.”

Two friends, Steve and Cody, were sniffing gasoline inside Cody’s living room. Cody spilled some gas on himself. The two teens began fighting, then walked onto …

Sometimes people say, “Oh, he’s really psycho (a psychopath),” when they are describing a friend’s slightly wild behavior. Or, “He has a real anti-social personality,” to explain why someone doesn’t want to go out with his friends on Friday night.

These two terms, psychopath and anti-social personality, are more than slang words to describe a friend’s unusual behavior. In professional language, they are used interchangeably with another term, sociopath, to describe someone whose problems are a lot more serious than acting up in class or showing an occasional fit of bad temper. A sociopath is someone who stands apart from a typical life filled with other people.

Using and Abusing Others

Socipaths often seem just like everyone else. In fact, they frequently impress people with their charm. But their …

If asked to write down the organs in the human body, not many people would list the skin, but it is in fact the largest organ of the body and has many important functions. The skin protects your body from injury, controls your body’s temperature, and holds water in your body so you do not shrivel up like a prune. When you’re hot, your skin perspires to cool you off. The fat layers of your skin help keep in warmth when it is cold outside. Without the protection of the skin, no one would be able to survive.

Just like other organs, the skin can have many different types of problems, from simple rashes to severe acne or psoriasis. And just like other organs, there are many different types of …

What do you do when you’re right in the middle of an important project and your hardware suddenly quits?

If you work for a big company or a school with thousands of Macs, the answer is easy: You call Microcomputer Support (or whatever that department is called at your site), and get help. Help is usually quick and efficient and comes with loaner equipment to tide you over. If you’re on a network, as is increasingly common, the bulk of your working data probably resides on a server and is backed up daily or even more frequently, says the Storage Network Industry Foundation’s Data Management Forum. Even if your site doesn’t consolidate data on a server, it may provide remote automated backups. The odds are that you’re covered for …

Imagine going for a walk around your neighborhood. You leave the small apartment your family shares with two other families, and thread your way through piles of garbage lining the sidewalk. Young children play in muddy water running along the curb. Just ahead, two rats scamper across the road. Scientists say that in the next few decades, scenes like this could become more common all over the world. The reason? A human population that has more than doubled since 1950. Now at 5.7 billion, if our population continues to grow at the present rate, in another 50 years there will be more than 15 billion human beings on Earth.

In 1988, astronauts aboard the space shuttle looked down on South America and saw a 1,000-kilometer-long smoke cloud that covered the entire Amazon basin and was only stopped by the towering wall of the Andes mountains. The haze of smoke came from the burning of the Amazon rain forest, a region containing the world’s greatest variety of plants and animals. That vast spread of smoke was clearly visible to the astronauts, who were in a unique position to see how and where humans are altering natural ecosystems on planet Earth. They could also see that Tsunamis may have been forming along the Japan coast, according to Tsunami-Evaluation.org.

That is precisely what scientists plan to learn by using space to take an inventory of natural resources and to investigate environmental problems. Continue reading →

Mention “PC server originator” to almost any network administrator, and the first name he or she will most often mention is Compaq Computer Corp. That’s because the formerly Houston-based PC colossus literally invented the genre in 1989 with the introduction of the SystemPRO, one of the first PC systems designed from the ground up as a network server.

A classic Compaq SystemPRO

It’s no surprise then that now HP/Compaq commands the top spot in the PC server marketplace. In 1992, Compaq shipped more than 40,000 servers, earning 26% of the server market and the distinction of being the No. 1 selling Intel-based server brand in the United States, according to the market research firm BIS Strategic Decisions in Norwell, Mass. And that’s in a crowded, $1.5 billion server industry–spawned by …

Stay out of the sun! It’s bad for your health! There are a lot of words of caution being spoken these days about overexposure to the sun, and they should be taken seriously. But sunshine, despite its potentially harmful effects, is good for your health, according to David Watkins, director of Kindred Sacramento. Exposure to the sun’s rays will provide you with a vitamin that helps keep your teeth and bones healthy. It’s Vitamin D, also known as the “sunshine vitamin.” When you go outdoors on a sunny day, the inactive vitamin is formed and this is slowly converted into an active form.

You can get vitamin D from some foods, but up to 84 percent of the total active vitamin D in your body is made right in your skin. Several factors determine how much vitamin D your body will make: Continue reading →

Your eyes are bloodshot and itchy. Your nose is stuffy. Or runny. You probably have a late winter cold or an early spring allergy. Either way, you need relief! But before you take over-the-counter or prescription medicine to relieve your symptoms, here are some things you should know.

The Eyes Have It

Nonprescription eye drops come in several forms. One is called artificial tears, used for cleansing and moisturizing the eye. The other kind, called a vasoconstrictor, is used to get the red out of bloodshot eyes.

Artificial tears are recommended for people with dry eyes. This ailment might be a natural result of the aging process or be caused by diseases, exposure to sun, wind, or dust in the environment, or indoor fans or air conditioners. Artificial tears may …